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I’m Taking My Talents to South Beach

Good lord, man. What have you been doing with yourself that’s kept you from updating this thing for months? Well, we’ve been enjoying the summer with trips to Nantucket, NYC, and the Berkshires. Oh, and the Lovely Suse and I both got new jobs.

Yup, after 7 years at hers and 12(!) years at mine, we’ve both decided to move on to “new challenges”. The Lovely Suse started her new gig a month ago at a school closer to home, and we’ve been loving her shorter commute, shorter hours, and the fact that the Lovely Tess will be joining her there in the fall. Score.

This week is my last week at my current job. None of you even know what the heck I do anyways, but you all know that I’ve been here for a very long time. I can’t think of anyone else that I know who’s been at the same job since graduating college like I have. Twelve years seems like an eternity, and it’s probably going to take a little time to get adjusted to a new place after being in the same environment, surrounded by the same people, and doing the same work for so long. But I am pretty ecstatic for the change. I went back to school and put myself through the ringer for two years to give myself an opportunity to transition to something different and more interesting. I feel very fortunate to have found something so quickly and something that I feel is a perfect fit for my skills, background, and interests. I’ll still be hanging around the technology world, but I’ll be moving to the consumer end of the business where I’ll be working for a large consumer electronics company that all of you have heard of. So thanks to the folks who I’ve worked with over the years, and thanks to a great company that has supported me and allowed me to grow over the past dozen years. My job title will no longer be “engineer”, but I’ll always be an engineer at heart. Time to move on.

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6/14/2010

Well, it’s been an eventful couple of weeks on the home front. Where to begin?

• We celebrated the Lovely Tess’s birthday in rocking style with water guns, Vietnamese food and chocolate pudding. Yes, at this point, people expect big things from us for birthday food. The first year we did a pretty standard grilled chicken and sides sort of BBQ, last year we did full-on BBQ with pulled pork, chicken, slaw, cornbread, so this year we had to change it up again. Something relatively easy to cook, tasty, a little unusual, and vegetarian-friendly. So we whipped up fixin’s for bahn mi (sandwiches with grilled meat, pickled carrots, diakon, and cukes, cilantro, and spicy mayo) and bun (rice noodles with veggies, grilled meat, chopped peanuts, herbs, and a dressing made with fish sauce and lime). By the lack of leftovers, people seemed to dig them. For dessert, we switched it up again by making chocolate bowls (which involved baloons, melted chocolate, and a lot of patience) and filling them with chocolate pudding andd whipped cream. Who doesn’t like chocolate pudding, right?
• The Lovely Tess celebrated turning three a week later by taking a flying leap into a nice soft armchair, landing wrong, and breaking her arm. So we got to spend our Saturday night at the emergency room, where, if you have a three year old with you on a Saturday night, you get excellent and quick service. A couple of excruciating x-rays later, and we had a little girl with a splint made out of a half cast wrapped in ace bandages and a sling with dinosaurs on it. This was replaced a couple of days later by a full blue (and thankfully waterproof) fiberglass cast that the girl can use as a weapon. That thing hurts. Otherwise, she’s completely fine with no pain, and the cast is really just there as a precaution. No clear fracture could be seen in the x-rays, but little kids are apparently 98% cartilage, so there may be a small fracture there. She’ll have the cast on for two weeks, yet another fashion accessory for her to match her glasses, bows, and sneakers with.
• We made the short trek out to Shelburne Farm to hit the strawberry patch. The berries were plentiful, we ate and picked and ate some more, and walked away with five quarts of them. Two days later, we’ve already eaten three of them. I love me some strawberries.
• I said it months ago, but I’m completely serious about learning how to sew. I have tons of clothes that I want to make changes to (taking in shirts, hemming pants, etc.), and the Lovely Suse has promised to teach me. This sounds like a great idea, right? I’ll let you know when I sew my shirt to my hand.
• Luckily, the Lovely Suse will have plenty of time to teach me. For those of you who don’t know, she will be leaving her current job this week and take a couple of weeks off before starting her new job. It was a difficult decision for her to make, but it will professionally and personally be a big change for the positive for all of us. The biggest of which is that she and the Lovely Tess will be attending the same school starting in the fall. She was also smart enough to realize that painting the kitchen cabinets was not the best way to spend her time off. There will still be painting, but on a much smaller scale. I think that she has other ideas and I may come home one day to find the kitchen ripped apart, but I’ll keep my fingers crossed.
• Yes, I plan on getting an iPhone 4 next week. Yes, I am an Apple fanboy. And proud of it.
• We made one of our favorite meals on Saturday night, which is a whole fish roasted with thinly sliced potatoes, cherry tomatoes, olives, and thyme. The potatoes get super crispy, the tomatoes and olives get shriveled and concentrated, and the fish is super moist and flavorful. But not necessarily the most approachable meal, especially for a three year old. Now, we’ve always loved showing the Lovely Tess the whole fish section at Whole Foods, and she always gets a kick out of it. But this time, she kept asking to see it and touch it, even the eyes. Um, ok. When it came out of the oven, she immediately asked for the eyes, and when I told her that the cheeks were the best part, she wanted those as well. The amount of parental pride bursting out of me was at an all-time high. While she didn’t actually eat the eyes, she devoured the rest. The girl eats stuff that I had never even seen let alone had the opportunity to try (and I’m sure I would have refused) until I was probably in my 20′s. We’ve always been of the philosophy of exposing her to as many things as possible, showing her where her food comes from, and not getting discouraged when she doesn’t want to try something. We keep encouraging her, but oftentimes, she’ll surprise us by going back from seconds and thirds of the spicy Thai squid salad, devouring an entire plate of “magical vegetable cake” at dim sum, and refusing to even look at chicken nugget, regardless of its pedigree. We’ve never forced our opinions on her, but obviously, she learns from us and decides whether something tastes good or not on its own merit. I’m not saying that she eats like this all the time, and we have plenty of nights when she doens’t want to eat dinner, and that’s fine. We don’t cook a second meal for her and most dinners are quite a bit more approachable and without eyes and a head still attached. Still, I’m glad to see that this favorite meal is now a family favorite.
• Yes, I watched the World Cup over the weekend. Not that I really know much about soccer (pronounced football) or know more than a few players, but it’s hard not to get into the spirit of it all and at least root on the USA or whichever country you’ve chosen as your own. But seriously, those vuvuzelas have to go. Is there a more annoying sound in the world?
• We finally got around to making these fries and they are spectacular. Best I’ve ever made and the new gold standard to which all others will be judged. But let’s be serious. This is the only way I will make them from now on. They were that good.

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The Big 0-3.

The Lovely Tess turns three today. A brief interview with the birthday girl:

Tess, how old are you today?: (Holds up 3 fingers)

How many is that?: Eleven!

What’s your favorite color?: Blue!

What’s your favorite animal?: A Pig!

What do you think about this whole oil spill in the Gulf?: What?

What’s your favorite food?: Cheese!

What’s your favorite thing to do outside?: Play with trucks!

What’s your favorite kind of truck?: A blue one!

Who’s your favorite Yo Gabba Gabba guy?: Dj Lance Rock!

What’s your favorite thing to drink?: Um, milk!

Who is your best friend?: Sam Miggilan!

Who do you love more, the Red Sox or the Yankees?: The Red Sox!

What is your favorite song?: The Shins!

Hey look, Daddy! A blue bus! I want to go on that bus! Maybe tomorrow.

What is your favorite book?: Miss Shine! (Little Miss Sunshine)

Should we go see a movie this summer?: (nods head)

I hear Sex and the City 2 is the most awful movie ever. Don’t ever go see that.: What?

Let’s go see Toy Story 3!: Yay!

What’s your favorite kind of emergency vehicle?: No more talking, Daddy. (goes back to reading her book)

Happy birthday, sweet girl!

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What I’m Doing with All of My “Free Time”

Please excuse me if I’m looking a little tired and and feeling sore today. We’ve been known to pack a lot into our weekends, but yesterday was a little ridiculous. Remember all of that free time I was going to have once school was finished? All of those projects I’ve wanted to do but haven’t had a chance to do them? Well, apparently, we tried to do most of them yesterday. A long and detailed summary of Sunday, May 23, 2010:

1. Got up at 7:30am
2. Breakfast (greek yogurt, blueberries, raspberries, granola, OJ)
3. 8:30am: Home Depot. Loaded 6 bags of mulch, 4 bags of garden soil, and 6 40 pound pavers onto one of those flatbed carts. Have you ever tried to push a few hundred pounds of materials around a Home Depot with one of those. They apparently only want to go sideways or in circles once they hit a certain weight. Also, one of the wheels was higher off the ground than the other three. I almost took out an elderly woman with a geranium.
4. Unloaded said mulch and soil and pavers with wheelbarrow.
5. I believe there was a Tess meltdown sometime around this point.
6. Sheets and towels are changed and put in the laundry.
7. Grocery shopping. Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. Coffee cake samples at TJ’s were a big hit.
8. Unload 4 bags of groceries
9. Back outside to spread mulch, dump soil into new raised planter.
10. Plant brussels sprouts, broccoli, lettuces, swiss chard, rosemary in planter.
11. Deciding not to push our luck, we break for lunch. Leftover grilled pizza (mushroom, proscuitto/arugula), salad.
12. Back to work. Plant tomatoes, basil, parsley, and thyme in our old planting spot.
13. Edge around the patio.
14. Start clearing and levelling grill area. Remove old flagstones, rake dirt, hack away at multiple large tree roots with hatchet. It’s fun using a hatchet.
15. Lay 40 pound pavers on the cleared spot.
16. Realize that they’re too low, relay pavers again.
17. Finish pavers, spray down with hose to clean them off, realize that they’re still too low and really need to be sitting on crushed gravel to properly drain. A project for another weekend.
18. Remove child’s head from between bars in backdoor stair railing (Oh, wait. That was last weekend.).
19. Mow lawn.
20. Marinate chicken (lemon, olive oil, red wine vinegar, parsley, dijon mustard, scallions, salt and pepper).
21. Make batch of ice cream (cookies and cream).
22. Wash, drain, and thinly slice two giant bunches of kale for salad (kale, lemon, olive oil, pecorino, salt and pepper).
23. Grill chicken.
24. Vacuum house. With all of the time spent in the dirt this weekend, it was pretty gross.
25. Check on chicken, realize that my never-ending propane tank has finally run out. Luckily chicken is done.
26. Eat.
27. Clean up.
28. Make quiche for Monday night dinner (caramelized onions, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, bacon). Yes, I said quiche. Eggs and bacon in pie form. What’s not to like?
29. Bathe the very dirty dog.
30. Bathe myself.
31. Shave.
32. Fold laundry.
33. Iron clothes
34. Eat ice cream.
35. Watch 15 minutes of TV (The Office).
36. Brush and floss teeth
37. Collapse in a heap into bed (9:30).

All of this was after an equally busy Saturday, although is was not quite as insane. Needless to say, I am walking like an old man today and will probably be asleep by 9pm tonight.

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5/10/2010

• Thanks to the Mass Save Great Appliance Exchange, we decided to replace our 11 year old dishwasher with a shiny new one at a ridiculous discount (Earth Day discounts took another 30% off the price). That still won’t make emptying the dishwasher any less unpleasant. By far our least favorite daily chore. The Lovely Suse and I usually offer the other $1000 to empty the dishwasher on a given night. Neither of us have ever taken that offer. It arrived on Saturday, and despite an early visit to Home Depot to pick up some needed supplies, I managed to install it without a hitch. Quite a surprise. It uses half as much energy and water as the previous one, and the new racks actually allow us to fit all of our giant dishes in there. That is worth the price of admission alone.
• I officially graduate this coming weekend. Cap and gown and the whole deal. Pants are optional, I believe.
• I’m very sad to see Lala.com shutting down at the end of the month. They were bought by Apple a few months back with the hope that their technology might spur a cloud-based iTunes streaming service (still a possibility, but I’m not holding my breath). They had a very different business model where you could listen to any song in their catalog once for free, and then you could either buy a web version of the song for pennies apiece and stream it as much as you want, or you could buy the mp3 for a higher fee and do whatever you want with it. It also gave the user the ability to upload their entire music library where you could access it from any browser. Very nice. I would often use it to listen to new music before deciding whether to buy it, and it allowed me to sample a much wider spectrum of artists than I otherwise would be able to. Hopefully the concept will live on in some incarnation.
• Mark my words: Pudding is the next big thing. Hope you enjoyed your time in the sun, cupcakes.
• Favorite new cooking show: Future Food. Molecular gastronomy master Omar Cantu of Chicago’s Moto takes on challenges to make food more sustainable, healthy, and local and uses his crazy kitchen tools to do some pretty impressive things. Example: using all of the scraps in his kitchen, things that would otherwise be thrown out, to make a multi-course menu. Funny how many things eventually end up in the blender, flash frozen, and deep fried though.
• I would like to take a moment to congratulate the Lovely Suse on her keeping our front closet clutter free for an entire month. It tends to be the place where every stray bag and purchases-to-be-returned ends up, which makes getting anything out of it pretty much impossible. She decided to clear it out last month, and I predicted that it would take until the next time we had visitors before it gets filled up with junk, but I must give her credit. I love it.
• So I’ve been playing with Foursquare for the past couple of months, checking in at various places while I’m out and about. Why? I have no idea. Almost none of my friends use it, it gives me no benefits, and I don’t publicly share the information. Still, I know that there is a huge wave of location-based services coming in the coming years whether you like it or not, and of course I like to be on the forefront. While I try to remember to check in at most places that I go, the list of places where I am “Mayor” is pretty pathetic. A CVS, a car dealership, a Home Depot, and a Whole Foods. I guess I am sort of happy about the Whole Foods one. I’ve checked into this particular one near work 12 times in the past 2 months, which is sort of sick considering this isn’t even the Whole Foods near our home. At some point, this will actually be worth something (I would happily take discounts, coupons, a special crown that I get to wear in the store, being addressed as Mr. Mayor, etc.), so it will be interesting to see how retailers and restaurants utilize this information (“Hey, we noticed that you haven’t checked into our store in a couple of weeks. Come back this week and get an extra 10% off…”). I know that people are all freaky about sharing personal information with others, but you can adjust the privacy settings and choose not to share checkins with others. If it benefits both me and the retailer without being too invasive, I’m happy to participate.
• I never thought I’d say this, but the Lovely Suse has managed to turn our kitchen into a paper-free one without any real hassle. We’ve long been using cloth napkins rather than paper ones, but I thought that the shift away from paper towels would be a tough one. We replaced them with a stack of small inexpensive kitchen towels and some absorbent reusable cloths, and we haven’t looked back. There have been a few cases where I would have preferred to use something disposable (oiling the grill, drying cast-iron cookware), but reusable solutions have worked out just fine. Go figure!

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4/30/2010

• Well lookee here! A redesign! It’s been a couple of years since I changed things up around here, so I thought it was time. Not too dramatic of a change, but things should be a little cleaner and work a little better under the hood. And check out these spiffy archives!
• Things have been very quiet of late since everyone is sick. I’m feeling about 98%, but the Lovely Suse is somewhere down around 20%. Poor girl. Let’s just say that last weekend, the entire house was asleep by 9pm every night. Hopefully this beautiful weather coming up will get us back on track.
• Hell, I haven’t even talked about my birthday. The ladies got me some sweet gifts from Smart Turnout, Ancient Industries and Proper Cloth. Very cool stuff.
• We finally made our first visit to Toro, which was fantastic. An incredibly diverse and funky menu of Spanish tapas with some very cool twists on the classics. I seriously wanted everything on the menu. The two hour wait didn’t exactly hurt our appetite either, but it was well worth it. For some reason I had excpected it to be more style than substance, but my expectations were completely unfounded. Oh, and pimientos de padron are officially the most addictive food on the planet. Must get more ASAP.
• While we were killing time for our table, we searched out and found what is possibly the coolest store I have ever been in: Bobby From Boston. The most incredible vintage store that is loaded with unique and amazing stuff. Suits, shoes, sweaters, jeans, belts, ties, accessories, jackets, and all sorts of knicknacks that you can spend hours looking through. Everything has been carefully curated and is in excellent condition. Oh, and everything is dirt cheap. I struck out (I was looking for a pair of brown oxford brogues and a “new” black dress belt), but the Lovely Suse picked up a pair of perfectly broken in but still in perfect condition Sperry Topsiders for $35. What a find!
• After a dozen years of using a completely antiquated email system, one that I could only access while at work, my work email has finally been moved to Exchange. Which means that I can actually get work email while at home and on my iPhone. Oh wait. Maybe this isn’t a good thing. Never mind.
• Have you seen this show 9 By Design? This couple builds these incredible multimillion dollar homes in NYC, moves into them, and then immediately starts building an even bigger one. Sells the old one, moves into the new one. Repeat. They’ve moved something like 11 times in 12 years. Oh, and they do this all while raising 7 kids under the age of 12. In Manhattan. These people are completely nuts. Very cool houses though.
• My other TV watching has consisted of random British cooking shows. Jamie Does and Raymond Blanc’s Kitchen Secrets. Don’t ask.

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4/13/2010

I am getting scolded for not updating this more often, but you know how it goes. I originally wrote this last week, so I apologize for the tardiness. So here we go…

• Thanks to the wonders of the instant-read thermometer, we made a pretty kickass leg of lamb last Saturday for Easter. Smeared inside and out with a paste of garlic, parsley, mint, rosemary, thyme, lemon and olive oil, wrapped up and tied, and then slowly cooked on the rotisserie for an hour and a half. Pretty much the best lamb I’ve ever done. Served it along with roasted fingerling potatoes, roasted asparagus, lemon-braised artichokes, and a salad. Did I mention that it was also 75 degrees out in early April? That made it even better.
• Trying to outdo ourselves, we made the decision to attempt to make an elaborate breakfast on Sunday morning. We got the idea from a segment on The Best Thing I Ever Ate (officially the only thing that I still watch on the Food Network) that described a dish called Eggs Rose. Toasted olive bread smeared with artichoke spread topped with two poached eggs. We did a no-knead olive bread the day before, whipped up the artichoke spread using artichoke hearts, lemon, garlic, parm, and olive oil, and then made poached eggs. This is officially the second time I had ever attempted to make poached eggs, so trying to do a dozen of them at once was not the smartest move. But somehow, at 8 in the morning, it all came together. Definitely a keeper.
• We joined a group of friends to celebrate a birthday at the Celtics on Friday night. And lucky for us, it was in a fully stocked luxury box. Now that is the way to see a game. Drinks, snacks, plenty of room to walk around, your own bathroom…oh and a visit from the 2008 Larry O’Brien Trophy.
• The Lovely Suse has apparently convinced me to paint our kitchen walls and cabinets sometime this spring/summer. I will tell you right now that I am already dreading this endeavor. While I would love to see our cabinets go from the stained maple color that they are now to a lovely white, we have a lot of cabinets. This is going to suck. And I’m a terrible painter. Oh, and the walls? It took 4 and a half coats to paint it the red color that it is when we moved in because we were big dummies and didn’t use a tinted primer. So I guess that will at least be easier. But I can already envision the nightmares of climing up and down that ladder over and over and over. On a brighter note, I finally managed to (almost) finish replacing the broken hinges that resulted in our cabinet doors staying slightly open. People, having hinges relying on pieces of plastic to keep them functional is not very smart. I suppose they did last 10 years, so I can’t be too critical. Oh, and I finally took off the child safely locks. How long will it take me to get used to NOT having them? At this point, it’s just instinctual to reach for the locks to open them.
• Cars are stupid. Especially when they break. Especially when they fail inspection due to worn tires. Especially when it costs lots and lots of money to replace those tires. Especially when the car engine starts making weird noises a few days later. Especially when the first step in the repair manual to fix this problem is “Remove engine from vehicle”. Um, yeah. Thankfully this one is at least covered under warranty.
• We had a BuyWithMe.com voucher for Sel De La Terre to use up, so we decided to do an early dinner and take the Lovely Tess with us. I suppose this would be her first “fancier” dinner out, and it went pretty smoothly. The thing is, when you eat dinner at 5pm, you’re going to find a lot of other parents with kids eating out at the same time. There’s always lots of controversy about taking kids to certain types of restaurants, but I’ve always been of the opinion that if you teach them the rules early, feed them quickly, and keep them from running around the restaurant and disturbing other people, then it’s all good. Otherwise, get them out of there. Hopefully we can continue doing this, because she likes it and it’s a lot of fun.
• No, I didn’t buy an iPad. I think that it looks very cool, and I’m sure I’ll be very tempted, but I’ll wait until the next one. In the meantime, I’ll look forward to the next-gen iPhone that we all know is coming this summer. Upgrade time!
• Probably the most annoying thing to hear from your kid when they know that they’re doing something to intentionally piss you off? “Are you happy?”
• Heard from the backseat 5 days before my birthday: “Daddy, I got you a birthday card.” Long pause…. “It’s a Snoopy one!!!”. Lesson learned: don’t share any secrets with your kids.
• I’ve started using RunKeeper regularly to track my workouts. You can see the ungodly hour that I get up in the morning as well as my occasional (but hopefully more frequent) runs scattered in there. Hell, you can even see where I go including this sweet one up in the mountains in Phoenix where I took a tumble and gashed my hand open! Anyone else use this? Join my Street Team.

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3/8/2010

Let’s see if I can get back into this. I know it’s been a while, and I’ll probably be repeating myself from my Twitter stream, but I think some people miss it.

• Enjoyed the first weekend of Spring-like weather with lots of time outside, firing up the grill for the first time this year, and taking the Lovely Tess on her first bus ride down to Harvard Square. Despite the lack of serious snow this Winter, it’s been a long one and I’m dying for some sunshine and warm weather.
• As if the bus ride wasn’t exciting enough, we’ll be taking the Lovely Tess on her first airplane ride this weekend. After a three year hiatus, we’ll be reinstating our yearly visit to Phoenix and Pizzeria Bianco. Oh how I’ve missed it. And this forecast is looking mighty fine.
• I really need to upgrade my camera, but in the meantime, I’ve been having a lot of fun with Hipstamatic, and app for the iPhone. The camera on the iPhone leaves a lot to be desired, so instead of hoping that it looks as good as a decent digital camera, let it mimic older analog cameras. You can swap out different lenses, film, and flashes to create very cool photos. I’m loving it right now. The only downside is that it’s pretty slow to process each shot, but in this age of instant digital photography, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to have to slow down every now and then. The Lovely Suse got me a Holga for Christmas, but until I figure out the ins and outs of devloping and printing those affordably, this will do for now. You can see some examples on Flickr.
• My suits suddenly feel naked with out a pocket square. I’ll be honest. Before I wore one for the first time, I had to look up how to properly fold one. They’re not just for Mad Men wannabees.
• I’ve been done with school for a week, and I think that I visibly look more relaxed. That nagging voice in the back of my head is now gone, and I am definitely enjoying my guilt-free relaxation time. And I finally had time to give my car the cleaning that it desperately needed after far too long. It was pretty shameful. Note to parents who let their kids eat snacks in the car: vacuum often. Even the Lovely Tess had started scolding me for how dirty the outside of my car was. That’s when you know that it’s really bad.
• We finally got to check out Coppa last weekend, and it was fan-frigging-tastic. Our favorite type of place with lots of small plates to order, and we literally wanted to order everything on the menu. Tons of hot and cold antipasti, stuzzi, salumi, pasta, and pizzas, great energy in the room, and reasonably priced. The wait can be pretty long (2+ hours), but we managed to go early (one of the benefits of having a toddler: you can eat dinner very, very early) and had only an hour wait. Smartly, they take your cell phone number and call you 20 minutes before your table is ready, so killing time in the South End is very easy. We will go back soon, hopefully. And I think that we can probably pull off bringing the Lovely Tess with us, provided that we get there when they open to avoid the wait. We’ll give it a shot.
• You know what makes for a really productive work environment? The sound of drywall being put up inches from your head.
• I’ve been a subscriber to Sirius for the past four years, and this will undoubtedly be my last one. I appreciate all of the stations and the lack of commercials, but they now nickel and dime their subscribers (royalty fees, streaming fees, etc.) to the point of feeling like I can’t justify the cost of it anymore. More often than not, I’m either on the phone, listening to NPR or podcasts, or obliging the Lovely Tess’s requests for The Ting Tings or the Roots. Add to that the ability to stream Pandora and other music services makes the subscription model unecessary. Your days are numbered, Sirius.
• I am a bit shamed to admit it, but I had my first bibimbap last week. With all of the Asian food that we eat, it’s a bit shocking that we never eat Korean food. I attribute it to a bad experience we had a number of years ago, but since then, it’s just fallen completely off our radar. Our usual Friday night “What do you want to do for dinner?” discussion suddenly took on new excitement when the idea of Korean food popped into my head, and we hit up a place nearby. What can I say? I’m a dummy. I suspect that it will go into heavy rotation ASAP.

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And It Comes to An End…

After two very long years, I am finally done with business school. For some of you, you’re probably saying, “Wow, that went by so quickly.” For others (mostly the Lovely Suse and the rest of my family) you are saying “Thank god it is finally over.” This has without a doubt been the toughest thing that I’ve ever done, not so much for the difficulty of the actual class material, but for the frantic pace that I’ve had to maintain for the last two years. Maintaining a full-time job, being a full-time husband and father, and being a full-time student pretty much pushes you to the edge of what a person can physically and mentally accomplish. Over the course of these past two years, I believe that I’ve had a total of four weeks off from school, and that includes holiday breaks. For those other 100 or so weeks, there have been cases to read, online discussion boards to participate in, papers to write, business and marketing plans to develop, presentations to prepare, seemingly endless conference calls that last until the wee hours, team dynamics to contend with, and classes to attend. Don’t get me wrong. It’s been an incredible experience with a group of supremely talented classmates, and I’ve crammed more information into my head in less time than I ever thought possible. I’ve learned so much that I hope to apply to my future endeavors, and I’ve have had the opportunity to learn from some truly great teachers (and sufferered through some pretty terrible ones).

So now what? That’s the question that obviously comes next. What the hell are you going to do with yourself now that you have this fancy-pants degree? Well, let’s take a few steps back and talk about why I chose to put myself through this in the first place. I don’t think it should come as a surprise to those of you who know me that I was not exactly content with the career path that I was on. After realizing for a number of years that I was on a path towards boredom and dissatisfaction without any idea of how to change that, I also realized that I didn’t have the skills to do much else. Business school would be an opportunity to gain some important and marketable skills that would hopefully give me a chance to take a new direction. I’ve never been one of those people who completely loved their job and couldn’t wait to get started every morning, but I’m also realistic enough to know that very few people experience that. I just want to be proud of what I do on a daily basis. Whether it’s a company or a technology or a group of people that I get to work with every day, I want to be excited, challenged, and motivated to perform every day. I know that my next job will not likely be my dream job, but it will be a step in that direction. What do I want to be when I grow up? I’ve got some ideas.

Thanks to my fellow classmates who have made this experience as great as it was and whom I realistically would not have made it through without. And of course, to the Lovely Suse and the Lovely Tess: Thank you for putting up with me for the past two years. Never once did you question me having a Friday night conference call (ok, maybe once or twice) or having to spend every weekday night doing homework or taking my computer on vacations or being away at school every month. I couldn’t have done it without your love, support and encouragement.

Now, it’s back to reality a bit. I’ve got some catching up to do. Books, movies, TV shows, sleep, family, friends, and some projects. I’ll hopefully finally have some time live a normal life and take some vacation in a couple of weeks. I can’t wait. I think we’ve earned it.

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Happy Holidays 2009

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